Probably Gengar, I think it has better art than Gastly and Haunter, and if I had to choose a second, Golduck. Why? Because of the very few TCG cards I have, Golduck fired it's gem lazor on one. Or maybe Zapdos, I have an older Zapdos card that was my first... Articuno is very awesome, also.....Disregard anything about Golduck, Zapdos, and Articuno- unless maybe they have a better chance of getting in than Gengar. XDwait, I found a picture of my Zapdos and my Golduck.

_________________"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." -Abraham Lincoln"You can't argue with all the fools in the world- it's best to let them have their way and trick them while they're not looking." -BromCredit to Jester for the avatar!

Okay, I've made my first choice to rank. The winning suggestion comes from Cherrygrove, so therefore I am ranking:

~ Jigglypuff's TCG Artwork ~ Unsurprisingly, as one of the series mascots, Jigglypuff has been featured in a sizable amount of cards over the years. The grand total was fifteen different cards, but I'll be ranking fourteen of them because the fifteenth is a jumbo card that features Pikachu, Clefairy and Jigglypuff, so it'd be at kind of an unfair advantage to rank against other cards that have ONLY Jigglypuff. Out of the fourteen remaining cards, repeat artists include Ken Sugimori (three cards), Atsuko Nishida and Kagemaru Himeno (two cards each), all of whom are some great artists! :O

14. Yuka Morii (Neo Destiny)

Yuka Morii seems to be a pretty divisive artist - some people like her clay figurines, others think she's the worst TCG artist. I personally find her to be pretty hit or miss and, unfortunately, her Jigglypuff is a miss. A clay figure of a Jigglypuff should be cute, but the weird angle and pose really kind of makes Jigglypuff look... braindead. Its eyes look dilated, confused, and too small; its arms and legs look kind of blobbish and and glued on the main frame, and the angle of the figure makes it seem like there's far too much empty space on Jigglypuff's face. Also, a surprisingly recurring problem with Jigglypuff's TCG artwork shows up in this card: its eyes are supposed to be blue, NOT green. Jigglypuff itself is just SO awkward here and, on top of that, the background couldn't be more generic if it tried, either.

13. Keiji Kinebuchi (Wizards Promo)

I am far harsher on the cards that have 3D artwork because, more often than not, they look like bad mid-90's CGI even though though many of them were made in the late 2000's. They also tend to feature the OMG COOL Pokemon rather than the cute ones. In this case, though, the card WAS actually made in the mid-90's, and it features a cute Pokemon, so it's a little more forgivable than similar cards. But, again, Jigglypuff's eyes should be a deeper blue than this, and Jigglypuff itself looks surprisingly blocky and polygonal for a Pokemon that's supposed to be circular. The music notes in the background that have Jigglypuff's eyes are kind of cute, but also: creepy. Really, really creepy.

12. Atsuko Nishida II (HeartGold/SoulSilver)

Atsuko Nishida is a glam goddessa, but sometimes even she makes artwork that leaves me feeling kind of "meh." There's nothing actually wrong with the art style of this card, as the shading and lighting is gentle and lovely, which totally fits Jigglypuff as a Pokemon. And I really love that you can see part of the Whirl Islands in the background, including the surrounding whirlpools, and that the background is detailed and the card in general is so colorful. So why is the card this low? Well, Jigglypuff itself. What is it looking at off-camera that has captured its attention? Why is its mouth gaped open in surprise? Why does it look like it has tears in its eyes? Why do its ears look so freaking weird? Why is this card making me ask so many questions?

I was originally going to only rank four cards and leave the top ten for two future updates, but these cards are so similar that I might as well rank them as a unit. To be honest I'm really not that wild about Ken Sugimori's official artwork for the first two Generations. The poses and shading are both SO off for most of the Pokemon in those early pieces that I always thought Sugimori was highly overrated until Generation III when it started looking like he wasn't watercoloring his drawings blindfolded. However, Jigglypuff's original Sugimori art isn't that bad; it's already a pretty light-colored Pokemon, so the whole shading thing isn't as noticeable here, and since Sugimori is the official Pokemon artist, he does have its eyes colored correctly, of course. And it's obviously cute because, really, what can you do to make Jigglypuff look ugly?

But the real problem with Sugimori's cards is that A) I've already seen this artwork eight billion times in other places, which kind of desensitizes me to the pictures, and B) the backgrounds are ALWAYS generic as fuck, making me think they're just slapping his stock art on some free clip art and crediting the cards to Sugimori despite him not actually doing anything. I like TCG GB's card a little more because it has an actual background, rather than a generic purple vortex.

I actually love Keiji Kinebuchi's Jigglypuff card - probably due to nostalgia. Looking back on it I guess it's not that spectacular and I guess it is odd looking. The card sucked though, it was terrible.

I'm not a fan of Ken Sugimori's early RBY art myself, actually, but I do like the art for Jigglypuff. I think his art really shows what Jigglypuff actually is: a balloon. The rest of the art for Jigglypuff doesn't really emphasize that.

I agree with your list except I think the Wizard's promo and the HGSS card should be swapped.

9. Naoyo Kimura (EX Hidden Legends)So, yeah, this one…. I actually think Naoyo Kimura is one of the TCG's better artists, as I love his/her coloring style, but this card is just a'ight for me, dawg. </Randy Jackson> There's nothing actually wrong with this artwork beyond it lacking pizazz. I mean, Jigglypuff is sitting in a tree, which is kind of cute, but not amazing. The angle is fine and the pose is alright, but Jigglypuff isn't really doing anything interesting beyond smiling blandly, and its face once again looks kind of off, although not as much as the Yuka Morii figure. The night sky background with the moon and the stars visible is pretty, though.

8. Atsuko Nishida I (Skyridge)Okay, again, I think Atsuko Nishida is generally one of the two best TCG artists around, but I don't know why her Jigglypuff artwork is so underwhelming. On face value this card is a pretty cute idea: two Jigglypuff playing together in the water, the one in the background winking at us. As I learned when I tried to draw TK a Wigglytuff for his birthday, though, Jigglypuff's eyes, if not done correctly, can very easily look bug-eyed, and ALL THREE of the eyes visible in this picture suffer from this problem. The little white reflection in the foreground Jigglypuff is just too big, and the open eye of the one in the background looks like it's staring into my SOUL, which makes it look almost sinister when the other eye is winking and it's smiling at me. The coloring also seems a little off in places, despite the background being effective. Just a piece that's alright for me.

7. Midori Harada (EX Crystal Guardians)I remember in my Psychology textbook, there was an example on perception and how, when we look at an image that is sideways or upside-down, our brains try to "fill in" the details of how we'd think the picture would look when viewed correctly, even though said details can actually be completely different. This picture actually reminds of that, because when you turn your head to look at Jigglypuff at the angle it's laying, something just looks weird about its face, namely: O_o, kind of like its G/R/B game sprites.

With that said, looking at the card normally is pretty cute, like it's almost hiding under the palm frond, but I've never really been a big fan of the artists contorting the Pokemon topsy-turvy to fit them as close as possible to show details while also getting it into the limited space of a TCG card (which is weird because Kagemaru Himeno does this ALL the time and she's still one of my favorite artists). The background never really stuck out to me until just now, when I realized that it's a water scene and that Jigglypuff is probably trying to swim, although this makes me wonder why it needs to hold a branch to do so.

6. Kyoko Umemoto (EX FireRed/LeafGreen)While I've never been too big on Kyoko Umemoto's artwork, I think hir Jigglypuff is pretty good. Jigglypuff chilling on a cliffside near the beach during the sunset actually has a good amount of setting to it, and Umemoto's Jigglypuff is a lot closer to the viewer than Kimura's Jigglypuff, so even though they have the same pleasantly bland pose of kicking back, smiling happily, Umemoto's is probably better. So why does this card go out there? Well, probably for the reason why I don't care that much for Umemoto in general: the style is just a little too primitive. I mean, look at how big and unrealistic the sun is in the background, or how the lighting is totally off for what's supposed to be a sunset scene, or how the coloring looks like it was done by any sixth grader who knows how to stay inside the lines but not how to convey shading. Again, it's still a pretty good card, but just not great, although it could have been if a different artist colored this.

_________________

Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:25 pm

nomnom52

Dragon Tamer

Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:15 pmPosts: 103Location: If I wanted you to know, then I would tell you!

5. Kagemaru Himeno I (Jungle)If you backed me into a corner and demanded to know my favorite TCG artist, I would probably say Kagemaru Himeno; she's the longest-running female TCG artist and her work, while always always good, has improved phenomenally over time. This Jigglypuff was one of Himemaru's first outings; as a result, it looks a little primitive in comparison, but she still knows how to use color and poses expertly to make awesome artwork. Jigglypuff looks very cute singing in a tree, and the sunset, leafy background colors and the musical scale surrounding Jigglypuff are quite fitting. I do have some qualms that take this one out at #5: in addition to Jigglypuff's comically huge feet, its eyes are also green instead of blue once again. Finally, and while this isn't really the artwork's fault, the fact that the comes from one of the classic sets means that I've seen it ten billion times over the years and, therefore, it's just not as exciting to me as it used to be. Despite this, Himemaru's first Jigglypuff outing set the standard for Jigglypuff artwork pretty high.

4. Ken Sugimori II (EX Team Magma VS Team Aqua)Like I mentioned two posts ago, I wasn't really a fan of Ken Sugimori's official stock art for the first two Generations, mostly due to the uneven water coloring that left huge blotches of white all over the bodies of the Pokemon. Thankfully, starting with Generation III, Sugimori adopted a more appealing style with bolder colors and cuter poses. Hence why this Jigglypuff card ranks so much higher than the two that have the original Generation I stockart; the pink coloring pops out far more, the shadowing is better, and the eyes are bigger, bluer and far more adorable. The background is admittedly still pretty bland, as the cards featuring Sugimori's stock art tend to be, so really it's the picture of Jigglypuff itself that brought this card so high up into the rankings while the bland background keeps it out of the top three.

3. Keiko Fukuyama (Southern Islands)SWERVE! Evil Penguin predicted that this would be in my top two, and she was close, but she's wrong. Let's talk about the good of this card first. It was made for the special Southern Islands subset, which always gave the card this elusive, cool feeling back when I was kid. And Southern Islands had really, really cute overall and this card is certainly no exception, as Jigglypuff is delighted to be sitting in a field picking flowers as Dodrio and Weepinbell hang out in the background. (All of the Southern Islands artwork was cropped from six larger postcard pictures, so many of them feature things happening behind the main Pokemon.) Jigglypuff's face is extremely adorable and expressive, and the card's background is very colorful. So what holds this card down? Well, the coloring on Jigglypuff itself. While the eyes are dead-on, thankfully, the coloring of Jigglypuff's body leans more toward the gray side than pink, and while it's not a huge flaw, it is enough to hold this card down at #3, especially with the existence of...

2. Kenkichi Toyama (Great Encounters)Great Encounters Jigglypuff was EP's prediction for #1 and, although it isn't, it's still my favorite of the Jigglypuff cards that I actually own. Released nearly a decade after Southern Islands, this card is essentially a better remake of the previous card. It's got Jigglypuff sitting in a field going, "I has a flower! :3" with a thrilled look on its face. While I do wish that the flowers were colorful, rather than being white, Jigglypuff itself is drawn in a sharper, bolder style and its undeniably pink, unlike in the Southern Islands version. It also seems just a little happier from picking its flowers in this artwork, but maybe that's just my interpretation. I also really like the subtle windiness of the background, with the clouds slanted and a couple of petals floating up from the flowers behind Jigglypuff. If there is only one minor fault with this card to me, it's probably that they made the white parts of Jigglypuff's eyes a tad too big.

And the winner is...

1. Kagemaru Himeno II (DPt-P Promo)The other Jigglypuff card by my favorite Goddess extraordinare Kagemaru Himeno, this Jigglypuff was released only in Japan as a promotional card during the Platinum series. And it pretty much combines all of my favorite aspects of TCG artwork into a single Jigglypuff piece: an adorable pose, an in-scale design, BLUE eyes that don't look too wonky or dazed, a delightfully happy face, a lovely beach background, and a nice use of shading and coloring that gives the artwork a relaxed, calm aura, which fits the beach scenery and Jigglypuff's facial expression quite well. This is easily my favorite Jigglypuff card, and about the only flaw it has in my eyes is that it was stupidly never released outside of Japan, even though they could have easily shoved it into the waste of a set known as Call of Legends. It seems to be a really rare card as well, since I've never seen it on eBay nor have I ever even seen a scan of it that's bigger than the one above, which is really a disappointing way to show off the #1 entry on this list. Sorry.

Many moons ago -- April 2011, to be exact -- I restarted my rankings site from scratch because of the introduction of 156 new Pokemon, plus their alternate forms, in Pokemon Black and White. After a lot of procrastination, working on other projects, working at my actual job, and starting a relationship, I'll be starting my BW rankings sometime in August, hopefully to be completed before XY come out on October 2012. (But LOL as if I can ever make a deadline, even if it's one that's self-enforced.) While the main spotlight will be on the BW Pokemon that I've never ranked before, the existing 512 Pokemon/forms were re-ranked and reshuffled accordingly, with some major rises and falls that will also be noted.

Overall, 683 Pokemon/forms will be ranked, including:-the 512 Pokemon that I ranked on the last list (they won't get new write-ups)-all 156 default forms of Pokemon that debuted in Generation V-Summer, Autumn and Winter Sawsbuck-Female Unfezant, Frillish and Jellicent-Blue Basculin-Darmanitan's Zen form-Meloetta's Pirouette form-Therian Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus-Resolution Keldeo-Black and White Kyurem-NOT Summer, Autumn and Winter Deerling because they're only pallet swaps-NOT any of Genesect's various Drive "forms" -NOT any of the Kalos Pokemon, revealed or otherwise.

So it took me the whole night to read the whole thing, and it's 3:30 here... (tired)And that is a really great ranking.

And it seems we like the same Pokemon: Rapidash, Meganium, Articuno, and even Dewgong.And I was happy to see my two favorite Pokemon in the top 50.~ But burn this orange flying Barney.

Jigglypuff really fall into a hole? Do you have a link or anything to post here, since I'm on my iPod and didnt want to click the link because it takes 38 seconds to load a page. (??) (And don't want to search in the whole thread again.)

_________________Thanks DragoBoy for this awesome sig and Mektar for the astonishing avatar!!!

What? Where? I didn't see Frost mention anything about that...where'd you see it?

It was in Snubbul's description.She actually says that Snubbul do the same thing as Jiggly, annoy Ash, but instead of actually disappearing in a black hole like Jiggly, Snubbul evolve.Something like that.

_________________Thanks DragoBoy for this awesome sig and Mektar for the astonishing avatar!!!

Okay, so I'm going to be doing seventeen updates of ten, with one update eventually having a bonus eleventh entry because there's 171 new Pokemon/forms being ranked. I'm not really planning a set schedule but hopefully I can get two or three updates done per week because I'd like to get these rankings finished before XY come out in October. An entire list of all 683 entries will be kept in this post; Unova Pokemon will have a Unova-only ranking number and overall slot, while older Pokemon will have a relative change value and a net change value.

*sigh* I hate this trio. I mean, let's be real here - they never really stood a chance to do well because I'm usually apathetic to most male-only Pokemon, and I generally dislike more of the newer Legendaries than not. But these three manage to take these two predispositions to dislike and run with them all the way to being the bottom three of a Generation filled with a colorful variety of Pokemon. Fun fact: all of this time I've been under the assumption that Unova's Pokemon, while not as good as Kanto and Johto's, were superior to Hoenn and Sinnoh's. Upon finishing these rankings, I did the calculations and was surprised as hell to find out that the average ranking of the Unova Pokemon was the lowest any Region. Why? It's because these three POSes, and their nearly as bad alternate forms that we'll get to soon, sandbag Unova so much that the Region would ahead of Hoenn and Sinnoh if they didn't exist. So call me irrational but I hold that as another strike against them because they've singlehandedly shattered my illusions.

On paper, the Kami trio, as they're called on Bulbapedia and approximately nowhere else -- I think TPCi decided on calling them the "Forces of Nature" -- are not a bad idea. They get their fanon name because their designs and dual typings are based on a trio of Shinto deities - Landorus is modeled after Inari, the god of fertility and leader of Raiden and Fujin, the gods of thunder and wind, who serve as the bases for Thundurus and Tornadus (as well as their eponymous Mortal Kombat and Final Fantasy VIII characters). Something I didn't know until researching Inari just now is that Fujin and Raiden are typically considered male-only deities, explaining Thundurus and Tornadus's gender ratios, but Inari can be shown as male, female or even androgynous, which just makes me resent Landorus slightly more for being male-only. Shockingly, Thundurus and Tornadus are represented almost exactly as Fujin and Raijin appear in Japanese culture.

While we're on that subject, the designs are what kill these Pokemon. Period. In addition to being horrifyingly ugly, they're also horrifyingly literal translations of well-known deities, almost painstakingly to the point that you wondered why they even bothered, or why they waited until the Region based on America to introduce Pokemon based on Japanese shinto deities. Landorus is the only one who really changes from the stereotypical depiction of Inari Okami, and all they did was make him a lame Ground-appearing rehash of the other two. Worst of all is that all three of these Pokemon are basically pallet swaps of each other, with only their facial hair and tails changed. This is unforgivably lazy and representative of one of my few real criticisms of Unova's Pokemon: to have more Pokemon than any other Region, the designers really got kind of desperate and made a few groups of Pokemon that are nearly identical to each other, and the Kami trio is the worst of this category because they're not even part of the same evolutionary line like some of the other offenders are. I mean, even the poses in their sprites are identical, and Tornadus and Thundurus have exactly the same stat distribution!

Out of the three I like Thundurus's design the most, only because his colors are the least offensive on the eyes and his hair and tail are the least lame of the three; he'd be the one I'd keep if I had to condense this trio into a single Pokemon. Conversely I hate Tornadus the most because out of 649 Pokemon, this ugly puke green and purple monstrosity is the series' first pure Flying-type when it looks like flying sewage and is based on a deity that is described as evil. In other words it could have just as easily been Poison/Flying based on appearance or Dark/Flying based on flavor, which is annoying. (Sugimori said that Tornadus was supposed to be red -- I think it might have been an improvement, honestly.) And Landorus is the in-between option but I hate his clunky head and how the other two are version exclusives and need to be in the same game to unlock Landorus because these "collect X and Y to unlock Z" stunts are always dumb. Also, all three are pretty annoying in competitive battles and were printed far too much in the TCG considering their designs are blindingly hideous. Until I finished and slightly revised my list earlier this week, the Kami trio actually weren't the worst of Unova on the list but come on. I doubt any other Unova Pokemon will make me spew four paragraphs of venom over how much I hate them.

673. Bronzong -- Generation IV, #437: +1/-168672. Magnezone -- Generation IV, #462: -23/-191: OMG, how did you get so far last time? I honestly cannot stand you for defiling Magneton and I only hate you more everytime I see you.

671/168. Druddigon: Generation V, #621

Surprise! I hate an ugly, angry Dragon. But unlike most ugly, angry Dragons, Druddigon is an anomaly because it's a single-stage non-(Pseudo/)Legendary and is actually rather lame in battle, sinking all the way to the depths of RU and only beating out the likes of Altaria in competitive battling worth. But who cares about that? Like the Kami trio, what really sinks Druddigon is its design. I've commonly seen it described as being designed and colored by a five year old and I'd agree, as it combines the "OMG cool" attitude of Salamence with the "OMG I just swallowed a stick of dynamite" appearance of Zigzagoon to create... this total mess that even the biggest Dragon fanboys don't go out of their way to really defend against its haters, as it didn't even make Round 2 of Psypoke Idol. Granted, seeing Druddigon outside of its game sprite i.e. TCG artwork did mitigate things enough for me to push it above the Kami trio and consider possibly moving it higher on my final revision, but I just can't because come on. It feels like its only purpose is to be a non-broken Dragon and even then I find it pretty unnecessary (and still really hideous-looking). Also its name doesn't really make any sense and makes me think of Druids.

670. Garchomp -- Generation IV, #445: -1/-168

669/167. Ferrothorn: Generation V, #598

And so Ferrothorn becomes the first Unova Pokemon for me to rank while having no idea what the hell it's supposed to be. Bulbapedia speculates that it's meant to be a durian but A of all, durians don't have thorny tentacle vines; B of all, its Japanese name includes the word "nut" and C of all, durians aren't fucking metallic. Anyway, Grass is one of my favorite types while Steel is one of my least favorite types for being boring, and unfortunately, the combination of the two results in something far more hideous than boring. I hate Ferrothorn's ugly tentacles, unappealing green and gray color scheme and, most of all, its eyes and the patterns around them that result in its hideous creeper stare. Like a certain other blemish on the Grass-type, Ferrothorn is an obnoxious tank to oppose in competitive battles, but its Steel-typing and access to entry hazards, Leech Seed and Iron Barbs also made it far more annoying than Cradily and resulted in it becoming one of the top-tier OU Pokemon because my most hated Pokemon always have to be metagame whores to piss me off further. It seems suitable to me that, despite having a gender, a Pokemon this repulsive can't learn Attract.

668. Cascoon -- Generation III, #268: -23/-189: How the hell did a Pokemon as boring and unnecessary this get so far last time?667. Silcoon -- Generation III, #266: -23/-189: See Cascoon but it's better.666. Defense Deoxys -- Generation III, #386: -17/-183: See Speed Deoxys, and it still looks like a giant traffic cone.665. Feebas -- Generation III, #349: -7/-173

664/166. Karrablast: Generation V, #588

OMG remember when BW first leaked in Japan and some people automatically assumed that Karrablast was Heracross's pre-evolution despite Gamefreak telling us up-front that no Unova would be related to older ones? Anyway thank god for that because Heracross is awesome while Karrablast is a little turd and so I'm glad there's no relation between the two. I don't really know what it is about Karrablast that enrages me so much; when I first rated the Unova Pokemon back in September 2010, I gave Karrablast some middling score of bland dislike like 4/10, but once I started actually doing the rankings, it was swiftly eliminated and I didn't look back. I hate its name that has no apparent roots. I hate that the blue portion of its body, which I assume is its shell, looks WAY too big for its stubby appendages and tiny head. I hate that its "horn" looks like a wrench from a toddler's plastic toolkit playset. I hate that it's a nasty little bastard who tries to eat Shelmet and also steals its armor just because it's a little prick. And worst of all, I hate its angry hissing face and rabid eyes and I'd kind of like to see Accelgor steal one of its pugils back from Escavalier and stab Karrablast in its fucking head.

663/165. Blue Basculin and 662/164. Red Basculin: Generation V, #550

"According to interviews with Ken Sugimori, Basculin was created late in development when they realized there were few new 'standard' fish-like Pokémon in Unova."

Yes, that's right, in a series that's filled with generic fish Pokemon, the designers in Black and White granted the gift from the heavens known as Basculin to satiate everyone's(?) need for even more generic fish Pokemon. In a game that had already included Alomomola. And to further throw things in our faces and laugh about it, they created not one, but two different forms of Basculin for no particular reason! Hooray. Because they're single-stage lines and don't have a secondary type, Gamefreak did indeed succeed in creating the most generic fish-based Pokemon of a series that has species like Goldeen, Remoraid and Finneon. Okay, so at least they're based on bass, which was an unused species and is native to the geographic area that served as Unova's basis. But to be honest I didn't even look at Basculin and think "bass" the first time I saw them; the spiky fins, demented eyes and crazy rabid fangs -- all of which would be enough to rank these this low -- made me think "piranha" more than anything, which made them feel even more rehashed. Unsurprisingly, Basculin's stats and movepool are as bad as any of the other fish-based Pokemon, too.

Blue Basculin without a doubt gets my vote for the most pointless alternate form ever, at least going by the game's internal code that doesn't classify stuff like Unown G, Overcast Cherrim and all four million Spinda as separate Pokemon. The only differences between the two are the colors of their stripes, the shapes of their fins and both the colors and the shapes of their eyes, and so Red Basculin gets the nod over Blue for me because it's the default form and it doesn't have the creepy soulless eyes that Blue does. Even worse than doing little to distinguish the two by appearance, they shockingly did even less to distinguish Red and Blue in battles. They have the same movepools, the same stats and share three of the same Abilities, with the one trait that separates the two being that Blue Basculin, for some reason, became the only Pokemon who can legally have four different Abilities at the moment because he gets ONE different Ability, and even then, probably by a production mistake. Overall, while it's not the single most offensive Unova Pokemon, if I had to delete five Gen V Pokemon to cut the Region down to Kanto's numbers, Basculin would be #1 on my list for being unnecessary AND horrible.

Although I originally had Fraxure below the Kami trio and only moved him up this far on my final revision of the list, it's still really the perfect storm of failure: a middle evolution, a Dragon and an awful design. Axew and Haxorus were both revealed to the public pretty early during BW's pre-release period, while Fraxure was kept hidden away until the game's release for good reason. Having none of Axew's cuteness or Haxorus's coolness, Fraxure tries to look tough but just comes off as clumsy. It doesn't look formidable enough to be threatening and, on the contrary, the awkward, uneven tusks across its jaw, its hunched-back stance and the sloppy red splotches on the chest actually make Fraxure look like somebody stabbed him in the face. He's also one of the bigger stretches of the Unova zodaic, as due to his face he's meant to represent Sagittarius, the "archer." I always thought something felt off about Fraxure's design and, upon researching for this entry, I found an interview in which Ken Sugimori actually confirmed that Fraxure was the first Unova Pokemon created, even going as far to say he was "homework" for a new design team. Why didn't Sugimori step in and fix it up, then? :/ Despite all of this I could see Fraxure having an "epic" 15-20 spot jump when I update this list in 2017 for Generation VI, as long as his XY model isn't as bad as his BW sprite.

658/162. Watchog: Generation V, #505

Watchog was originally destined to be some irrelevant piece of flotsam who got carried to the 5/10 range of the list where I struggle to come up with the slightest bit of commentary, but EP campaigned for Watchog's elimination as one of the few Pokemon he hated and, well, here we are. Unlike a lot of early-game wild Pokemon space fillers, my distaste for Watchog has little to do with how common he is -- although the AI's hax with Hypnosis is really obnoxious, ensuring that Watchog is a royal pain to fight against despite being worthless if you try to use him -- and everything to do with its aesthetic. This sucks because as the first groundhog Pokemon, Watchog could have been something really cute and innocuous; instead, Gamefreak decided to make him look as horrible as they possibly could. Body that's paradoxically too lanky but also too stumpy thanks to that noodle tail? Check. Blinding neon yellow stripes everywhere for no reason? Yeah. Similarly yellow-but-also-red-striped eyes that look bloodshot and, thanks to his permanently crossed arms, also irate and pissed off? You got it. He's just far too angry and rabid for my tastes, lacking even the occasional lulz that its pre-evolution provides, and he looks like he wants to murder me at all times. No thanks.

I might slip the eleven Pokemon entry into my next update if I can. And like, before, clues for the next update: Highlight to view spoiler.-A bunch of middle evolutions, Legendaries and alternate forms.-Four Pokemon related to ones in this entry in some way.-The first two stages of two different three-stage lines.

Go read Frost's write up on Spiritomb. That level of hate is on par for my hate of Watchog. At least Spiritomb has the benefit of only a couple characters in the game using it, while Watchog is one of the villian team's pokemon of choice

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